It’s Fall 2017 (in North America), and you know what that means – Microsoft has released the latest Windows 10 version. This also means that it’s time for an updated “How To” on creating customized Windows install media.

This article will be extremely similar to my previous article for 1703, but all screenshots are updated to reflect the latest experience.

As mentioned previously, for this walk through I will be detailing the steps I personally use. Please note that there are multiple ways to achieve the same end goal. I have, however, successfully used this method for the last four years without issue – deploying across thousands of computers within the organization I work for (and of course at home as well).

Acquiring the necessary Tools

Download the Windows ISO for which you are creating custom media. In my case, I’m downloading “en_windows_10_multi-edition_vl_version_1709_updated_sept_2017_x64_dvd_100090741.iso” from MSDN.

Download the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 10 Version 1709 from here.

Preparing your environment

Designate a workstation (physical machine) with Hyper-V capability as the “host” for this project. Ensure your host is already operating on Windows 10 Version 1709.

Note: technically this is not required, but these instructions will assume this. Your experience may vary if you do not ensure your host is already on Version 1709.

Enter Audit Mode and Install Applications

Once you’re presented with the Region screen (where you select the country) – STOP.

Enter CTRL+SHIFT+F3.

Windows will reboot and log you in with the Administrator account.

When presented with the System Preparation Tool window, click Cancel.

As established in my previous articles, Audit Mode is my favorite choice of creating customized Windows install media. If you are unaware, Audit Mode bypasses OOBE and negates the need of creating a new user account, thus assigning a “Registered Owner” name.

Now that we’re in Audit Mode, the first step I do (and recommend!) is disabling the “Consumer Experience” via GPO.

The “Consumer Experience” is the default mode Windows 10 (including Enterprise) is shipped with. This mode, upon initial login of a new user, commences the automatic download of a plethora of (unrequested) UWP apps, thus filling the start menu with games like Candy Crush. I deplore this feature beyond anything Microsoft has done in the past. It cheapens the Windows experience and frankly, I think they should be embarrassed that this is included in their flagship product. Fortunately, this feature can be disabled – but only on Enterprise edition.

To disable this “feature”, open up the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Cloud Content and double click Turn off Microsoft consumer experiences. We will want to Enable this GPO and click OK.

At this point, we can now (safely) enable the Network Interface on this VM.

As mentioned previously, I’m not the biggest fan of these UWP additions to Windows. Some apps I find useful (like the Weather and Maps app), while others I find to be redundant and a waste of space (Mail, Calendar – these are useless if you use Outlook). Additionally, I couldn’t care less about a 3D Viewer/Printer apps. Because of this, I have done the hard work for you and generated two groups of Powershell commands that need to be ran (as admin) – and after doing so, all non-essential UWP apps will be removed (Weather and Maps are not removed). Note: these apps can be redownloaded via the Windows Store if desired, but they will not be included in the base Windows install.Note: it goes without saying, but running these commands is completely optional.

Once your VM is shut down, create another Checkpoint named “Complete”.Do NOT power your VM back on.

Creating a WIM file

The hard part is done, next comes the fun part: capturing your customizations into an image file. Given you’ve made it this far, I’m going to presume you already know that an OS WIM file is the compressed OS image in a single file. The original Windows install media includes the vanilla install.wim file (located in the sources folder) – but we’re going to be replacing that file with our own. To do this, we need to “capture” the last Checkpoint.

Depending on your processing power, this may take a little while. When complete, you will see “This operation completed successfully.” You should now see a file named “customInstall.wim” at the root of your C:\ Drive.

And just like that, we’ve now split this large WIM file into two (or possibly more) smaller files – with the largest file being 3800 MB. Why 3800 MB? Because it’s less than 4 GB, the maximum file size for a FAT32 formatted flash drive! This will allow us to use a single flash drive for GPT / UEFI Windows 10 installation. (FAT32 is required for Windows GPT/UEFI media.)

Once you’ve confirmed both “The operation completed successfully” results, head back into Disk Management and right-click the Read-Only VHD disk and click Detach VHD. Click OK when prompted to confirm.

Build the Customized Media

Double click the stock ISO you used to install Windows in stage01 to mount it within File Explorer.

I explain what this convoluted string of commands means here if you’re interested.

Once complete, you now have a UEFI bootable ISO named Win10v1709-Custom.iso located at the root of your C:\ Drive!

You can test to make sure it works by creating another Virtual Machine within Hyper-V and choosing Generation 2 (UEFI bootable).

Make UEFI Bootable USB Disk

If you’ve ever needed to create a UEFI bootable USB disk before, you may be familiar with the (brilliant) product named Rufus. It’s a very straightforward Windows ISO to USB tool which, right off the bat, asks if you want to do a GPT partition (UEFI bootable) or a MBR partition (BIOS bootable) drive.

Technically, the ISO you just created can work with either one of these formats, but since GPT and UEFI (along with Secure Boot) is the industry standard going forward, I would recommend sticking with that.

Side note: If you followed my 1703 guide, you might remember an annoying side effect of removing the built-in UWP apps – “place holders” that cluttered up the Start Menu after a fresh install. Fortunately, it appears that Microsoft fixed this problem! An example of my clean start menu after a fresh install is included below:

Let me know your experience with following these steps! Hopefully this walk through was helpful and the process didn’t take too long.